Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for pick transfers of articles supported by a pallet.
Brief Discussion of Related Art
Pallets are used in transporting and storing articles. In particular, items to be shipped or stored are stacked and/or bound together into a large contiguous volume on a pallet. The pallet supports the items above the floor or other surface on which the items rest, while providing space beneath the items such that a mechanical device (e.g., pallet jack, forklift) as known in the art can lift the pallet, and the articles on it, to be moved.
Frequently, pallets of articles are stored in warehouses, stacked on pallet racks for efficiency of space. A manual picker will approach the pallet and remove some quantity of items from the pallet as they are needed, leaving the remainder. When articles are stored on the pallet in pallet racks, there are many difficulties for pickers inherent in picking articles not directly in front of them at the point of pick, for example, toward the back of the pallet and the rack. In part due to tight spacing of pallet racks, as a particular pallet is emptied of its contents, the picker must bend and reach to retrieve items, for example from the back of the pallet. These difficulties include pickers experiencing significant stress to the shoulders, upper back and lower back when picking the hard to reach articles by having to bend over, reach a great distance and/or pull out layers of articles. These bending and reaching motions can be a common cause of musculoskeletal injury to the picker. In addition to the human cost of such injuries to the worker, any worker lost-time injuries cost the employer in lost employee productivity, higher employee turnover, higher workers compensation insurance rates, just to name a few. In high-density storage applications, articles, pallets, etc. are stacked off the floor in racks that require a picker be lifted to the level of the items by a lift, for example by forklift, in order to access the articles. For safety, the picker must be tethered to the forklift to prevent a fall. This tether interferes with the picker's ability to reach into a pallet for items, reducing the pickers' level of productivity. Allowing the picker to access articles without reaching from or leaving the lift would improve productivity.
Many prior art methods for addressing these concerns did so by providing additional space about the top and/or sides of the pallet and articles and/or by providing access to same from additional and/or all sides. These prior art solutions, come with a significant cost, in that they generally reduce warehouse storage density and may require that existing racks be redesigned.